Captain Ed is a father and grandfather living in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, a native Californian who moved to the North Star State because of the weather. He lives with his wife Marcia, also known as the First Mate, their two dogs, and frequently watch their granddaughter Kayla, whom Captain Ed calls The Little Admiral... [read more]

Mickey Kaus, in his kausfiles entry for today, also notes the descent of Kerry's numbers, now even in the Rasmussen poll which shows Bush ahead of Kerry head-to-head outside of the margin of error:

... it's different when the drop is comes at the same time as a) a candidate whom no large group is enthusiastic about and b) whom Democratic voters in a truncated and unconstitutionally inhibited* primary process haven't bothered to find out much about c) is first exposed to the general electorate. Then the voters may simply be discovering they don't like him! By July 26 it could be clear to everyone except about 3,000 delegates to the Democratic convention that Kerry is not cutting it against Bush ...

Mickey earlier (3/16) linked back to my post on the CBS/NYT poll and how it showed that the numbers had slid precipitously for Kerry; against Bush and Nader, Kerry trailed Bush by eight points. Mickey and I agree: the "front-loaded" Democratic primaries have forced a bad candidate onto the Democrats, perhaps one of the worst campaigners in the field this year. He's unlikable, he's careless in his speech, he's truth-deficient, and he owns one of the most extreme voting records in the Senate.